


Seven O'Clock

by Sanalith



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-20
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 07:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanalith/pseuds/Sanalith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione needs something very important from her Potions Professor...his library!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven O'Clock

Severus Snape did not consider himself an overly dramatic person, whatever _some people_ might have to say about the billowing of robes and the stalking of hallways. He always did his best to handle things in a cool, rational manner, without emotional entanglements. It was much simpler that way, after all. But there were some days even he found his vaunted control tested, and all he wanted to do was throw back his head and howl, demanding why in Merlin’s name he always got stuck with the worst possible assignments known to wizard-kind.  
  
Ah yes, and then he’d remember. It was because Albus-Bloody-Dumbledore “asked” him to. Fabulous.  
  
It seemed innocent enough time time, but then it always did. “I’m sending Miss Granger by your office later today to pick up some books,” Albus informed him cheerfully. “Not many at all, just a handful, really. She’s working on a special assignment for me, and it would be ever so much easier if she could peruse your shelves instead of the library.”  
  
Severus gave a customary grunt. The Headmaster knew how he felt about his books being touched by others, but - despite the fact that she was a Gryffindor and the best friend of the Boy-Who-Wouldn’t-Stop-Living, he grudgingly admitted that she’d probably take better care of them than any other student he could think of. And at least he’d just have to shove the books at her and she’d be gone. Relatively quick and painless.  
  
Until she appeared in his office wide-eyed and excited, Dumbledore’s list of texts clutched eagerly in her hands, when he realized he’d been played for a fool yet again.  
  
Firstly, there were significantly more than “just a handful, really” of books on the list. And most importantly...well, let’s just say that she wouldn’t have been able to find any of them even in the most restricted part of Madam Pince’s Restricted Section.  
  
“I don’t know what the Headmaster was thinking when he sent you here,” he informed her tersely, “but allowing these texts out of my office is absolutely out of the question. The are far too rare, not to mention dangerous, to be placed in the hands of a mere student.”  
  
Immediately crestfallen, Hermione opened her mouth to assure him that she would take extra, _extra_ special care of them, and wouldn’t allow _anyone_ to even see them, much less touch them, not even Harry and Ron, but he fixed her with his most withering glare, and she shank back and lowered her gaze.  
  
“I understand how valuable they are, sir,” she replied quietly. “But...but the Headmaster was quite insistent that I read them, so....”  
  
Snape sighed. As much as he wanted to toss the parchment in her face and retort that he didn’t give a damn what the Headmaster said, he knew Albus would just send her back down again - or worse, accompany her himself - and that would only make things worse. Which meant there was only one viable option, and he was Not Pleased.  
  
“For someone touted to be the brightest witch of her age, you can be extremely dense at times,” he snapped. “I said letting you take the books was out of the question. I never said said you couldn't read them.”  
  
Hermione’s head snapped up, her damnable expressive eyes filled with both hope and uncertainty. “You would...allow me to read them here, then?”  
  
Snape rolled his eyes. “Do you see another option, Miss Granger?”  
  
“No, sir,” she responded immediately. “I would be perfectly willing to read them here under your supervision.”   
  
She set down her backpack and pulled out a leather planner, which he noted was color-coded well into the future. Her meticulous study schedule, no doubt. He scowled at it.  
  
“Shall we make out a schedule? I’d only come down when you were already planning to be here, obviously, as I wouldn’t want to be a bother, and___”  
  
“Miss Granger,” he snapped, “it’s clearly too late to avoid being a bother, so you might as well put that stupid planner back into your bag.” Crossing his arms, he gave her the full force of his Professor stare. It usually made students run for the hills, but she managed to return the gaze with only a slight tremble. Gryffindor courage, indeed.   
  
Or stupidity. They were interchangeable.  
  
“Beginning tomorrow evening, you will be here at precisely seven o’clock. _Precisely_ , Miss Granger. Not one minute before, not one minute after. You will read the books _silently_ in a place of my choosing, where you may remain until curfew. You will leave everything _exactly_ as you found it when you are finished. Not one paper out of place. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”  
  
Hermione nodded immediately. “Yes, sir. Seven o’clock exactly. I understand.”  
  
Snape nodded once, then turned his back, effectively dismissing her. He heard as she quickly stuffed her planner back into her bag, zipped it, and trotted out the door.  
  
Albus owed him for this. Big time.  
  
*****  
  
At exactly 6:58PM the next evening, Severus heard a slight shuffle outside his office door. He smirked. Had it been anyone else, he might have been impressed, but as it was, he allowed himself only a slight bit of amusement. If nothing else, the girl had always been prompt.  
  
Two minutes later, the carriage clock on his mantle chimed the hour, and she knocked twice. He snapped at her to enter, and she did so, her hands filled with parchment and two quills.  
  
Without preamble, Severus led her to the back of his office and wordlessly brought down the wards to his private chambers. He showed her to a corner, as far away from his personal work space as possible, where he’d placed a small desk and the first book on her list.  
  
“Sit here,” he ordered, jabbing at the stool behind the desk. “And remember, no noise, and no mess.”  
  
Hermione nodded fervently, her eyes already locked on the precious book. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”  
  
And that, supposedly, was that.  
  
*******  
  
At first, Snape was horribly distracted. Her mere presence was enough to set off warning bells. Then there were the sounds. The turn of a page that wasn’t his, the scratch of a quill when he wasn’t writing. Her very breathing was an initial annoyance. But after a time, he was able to tune her out, and he got on with his marking of dunderheaded essays as normal. And before he knew it, she was standing in front of his desk, the clock reading a quarter of ten.  
  
He immediately scanned her workspace, and grunted when he saw that everything had been meticulously tidied and there was not a trace that anyone had sat there.   
  
“May I return tomorrow, Professor? Same time?”  
  
Snape inclined his head without looking at her, though he could see her smile out of the corner of his eye. Without another word, she turned and left, leaving him almost... _almost_ wondering if this arrangement might have a chance in hell of actually working.  
  
The following night, events repeated themselves. He heard her shifting outside his door a few moments before the appointed time, and her knock promptly on the hour. She silently followed him back into his quarters and sat down at her desk, and he heard not a peep from her until almost three hours later. The third night was broken only when she meekly requested the next volume on Dumbledore’s list, and he made a large show of grumbling at the annoyance, but she then returned to her spot and continued her work. The next few nights, without meaning to, he began paying attention to how far she progressed during each session, so he could provide her with two books at the beginning of an evening if it appeared she’d finish early.  
  
“So as not to disturb me again,” he informed her sharply when she thanked him, and she merely smiled.  
  
He refused to describe her nightly visits as pleasant, but after several weeks, he began to find them more...normal than he’d imagined. Her presence was no longer intrusive, exactly. She was simply _there_. When she knocked now, he often opened the door from inside his quarters and lowered his wards so she could enter on her own and begin working without his direct interference. When she needed a new book, she was now allowed to return her current text to his shelf, “Directly from where I took it originally, Miss Granger, and not haphazardly on some other case!” and choose her next one.  
  
This was all to make his life easier, of course. The less he hand to interact with her, the better.  
  
But such was her regularity that he found himself feeling strangely discontent when, one Friday evening, his clock chimed seven and no knock sounded.  
  
She said she was coming. She always did. Her evenings always ended with the same question as the first. “May I return tomorrow, Professor? Same time?” Only once had she not come, and she’d informed him the evening before as to exactly why and assured him she’d be back the following day.  
  
For one brief moment, his spy senses kicked in and he actually felt a pang of fear. After all, she WAS Harry Potter’s best friend, and she WAS doing research for the Headmaster. What if Voldemort had___  
  
His thoughts broke off as he heard the clatter of shoes running down the hallway, a brief knock - not her usually smart rap - and she exploded into his classroom, gasping.  
  
The clock read 7:03 PM.  
  
Immediately forming his face into a dark scowl, he snapped, “Miss Granger, I do believe we had an agreement about what time you would appear before me?”  
  
Gulping air, she nodded frantically, her eyes wide with worry. “Yes, sir, I’m so sorry, sir, it’s just that Crookshanks must have eaten something that disagreed with him and he made quite a mess in the dorm and I was cleaning up after him and lost track of the time and____”  
  
“Spare me your idiotic prattle! I said seven o’clock and not one minute after! This sort of disruption in my work schedule will NOT be tolerated.”  
  
Eyes downcast, cheeks red, she nodded, and began taking a few steps backward.  
  
“Twenty points from Gryffindor. Now hurry up and get to work, and let’s have no more of these disturbances.”  
  
Her head snapped up in shock, but he’d already turned away and was stalking into his quarters. Too surprised to do anything else, she hurriedly followed him before he closed his wards right on top of her.  
  
It wasn’t until he heard the familiar sound of pages turning and a quill scratching that the tension in his shoulders fully eased.  
  
****  
  
They settled back down into their normal routine, and she was never tardy again. He sometimes wondered what her friends thought about her spending every evening secluded in his dungeons, but since he couldn’t bring himself to care what The Prats thought about anything, that never lasted long. Some nights, when he finished his marking early, he spent the evenings catching up on the subscriptions to his potions journals. Once, when she was finished and came over to bid him her customary farewell, she noticed the article he was reading and began enthusiastically asking about it, before his glare shut her up. She never attempted to discuss his reading again, though she always glanced at the titles when she came over.  
  
She finished her reading assignment three months later. He watched out of the corner of his eye, pretending to focus on his article while she replaced the final book, straightened her work space, and then stood before him. As always he made her wait a few moments before acknowledging her.  
  
“May I return tomorrow, Professor? Same time?”  
  
He made his customary assenting grunt before her statement truly processed, and he found himself looking up at her in surprise (though he managed to school his face into a glare quickly enough). “Miss Granger, did you or did you not complete your assignment from the Headmaster?”  
  
He saw her take a deep breath, square her shoulders, and then nod. “Yes, sir, I did.”  
  
“And did he give you more reading of which I was unaware?”  
  
“No, sir, he did not.”  
  
“Then pray why, Miss Granger, are you asking to return tomorrow where there is no reason for it?”  
  
“Well, you see I...” Her voice trailed off and she licked her lips. He ignored that and continued to give her his best scowl. “I...I was wondering if maybe...maybe you would allow me to read some of your other books...just because...”  
  
“Just because?” he repeated, incredulous.  
  
“Yes, sir.” Her voice strengthened. “Just because.”  
  
“Miss Granger, you have invaded my private space for the last twelve weeks. I allowed this only on the Headmaster’s orders, and even then with the greatest reluctance. What could possibly induce me to continue this...association... _just because_?”  
  
Taking another deep breath, she looked him straight in the eye and replied honestly, “I don’t know, sir. But...may I, just the same?”  
  
He stared at her silently for a good five minutes, the only sound in the room the ticking of his clock. A thousand snarky responses danced on his tongue. He needed only to select the most cutting to send her on her way. Then he would have his room back to himself again. Then he would be free of her.  
  
“Seven o’clock precisely, Miss Granger. Not one moment before, and not one moment after.”  
  
He turned back to his journal, but not before he saw her smile.


End file.
